


Snips and Snails

by charybdis



Series: Dreamgirl!Arthur [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Author's Favorite, Gen, N Things, POV Multiple, mindheist Idol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-08
Updated: 2010-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charybdis/pseuds/charybdis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the dream, Arthur has a voice low and smoky like luxury whiskey, and it clashes horribly with the light colors and crisp pleats of his linen blouse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snips and Snails

Arthur carries a loaded die as his totem because it's a good habit -- 'best practices', if you will -- not because he needs to carry it. Not when his actual totem is impossible to misplace.

Totems.

Whatever.

 

_**I. Cobb** _

"Arthur? Is that you?"

There's a strange note in Cobb's voice, like nervousness or confusion, and Arthur looks up from contemplating the inky depths of his coffee.

"Is there a problem?"

"No. Not at all." Cobb's frown is more worried than angry, but any kind of frown is never a good thing on the face of a potential employer. The interview has barely even started and Arthur's already mentally reviewing the next job listing in his search.

"It's just that," Cobb interrupts his thoughts, "last time I checked, Arthur was a guy's name."

"What?" He has to check his first response, which is to leap across the tiny cafe table and deck the guy -- it's been years since the bullying and the days of too-thin-too-small-to-live, but old habits die hard. The coffee cup rattles as he puts it down, but he manages to stay in his seat.

Until he follows Cobb's bewildered stare -- glances down at his own chest and sees _breasts._

It takes a good quarter-hour for Cobb to talk Arthur down and explain the nature of dreams, and another half-hour for him to lay out the job specifics.

It takes a lot longer for either of them to get used to the sudden appearance of unexpected breasts.

 

_**II. Mal** _

On the first extraction, she helps him settle on the name Artemis, because much though he hates being called Art, he hates 'Ms. Arthur' even more, and the mark must call him _something_ for them to pull off this job. There's a bit of argument over the name, but ultimately, the name is the easy part.

For all that his subconscious thinks he's female, Arthur is a terrible woman. He brings all his angles into the dreamscape, can't stop dressing himself in square-shouldered, crisply tailored suits, always stands with his feet planted solid and a little too far apart.

Mal tries, she really does, to teach him how to do it right -- how to disguise predatory grace as elegance, how to walk smooth and slow, how to use a smile to hook information from an unsuspecting man. Arthur's a quick study but none of it really takes, and most days Mal sees the shell of girl not-quite hiding the tough-guy, like a silk-lined leather jacket turned inside-out.

Still, she knows what it means. Dom found the perfect point man.

 

_**III. Eames** _

"You told me you needed a forger."

Cobb's stare is unimpressed. "We do."

Eames eyes the girl sitting opposite him and says, "It looks to me like you've already got one. Nowhere near as good as me, though."

"That would be because I am not, in fact, a forger." In the dream, Arthur has a voice low and smoky like luxury whiskey, and it clashes horribly with the light colors and crisp pleats of his linen blouse.

"Well, that's wonderful news, my dear, because you're terrible at it."

"Art takes point for my team," Cobb says sharply. "And my team is the best in the business."

It's not a boast, it's fact; Dom Cobb is fast and smart and legendary, good at picking a team and even better at finding secrets. It takes all of two seconds for Eames to make a decision.

"I'm in."

And then he finds out that part of the reason Arthur-Art-whoever is the best in the business is because he has a steady hand and a clean trigger-pull.

 

_**IV. Saito** _

"We couldn't find much on this 'Artemis' that Cobb employs. Only that she is one of the best, and that there are no photographs of her."

Saito gives the dossier a cursory glance and shakes his head. Compared to Dom Cobb's still-open file on his desk, Artemis's file is ludicrously thin, almost as though she doesn't exist.

"Impossible. The world is full of surveillance, from banks to the local market. There is a photo of her somewhere."

"Sir. We will find one. In the meantime, that is all we have."

One of the pictures in Cobb's file catches his eye.

"No," he says as the puzzle comes together in his mind. "No, that will not be necessary. Rather find me information on this man." He points to the man standing beside Cobb, tall and thin and impeccably coiffed. "This one."

"Sir."

Long after his assistant has left the office, Saito sifts through the pictures of Cobb and his partner, piecing together the character of a man who knows exactly who he is and the face of a woman who knows exactly what she wants.

 

_**V. Ariadne** _

"You're being awfully nice to me -- for a projection," Ariadne observes. She's still got thirty minutes in the dream before this exercise is over, and she's ready to find out just how fast she can create while on the run, ready to try out a few of her own paradoxes. "I'd have thought Arthur's mind would be much more hostile."

The woman she's working with is tall and slender in a way that Ariadne privately envies, even if she is wearing a suit that looks like it was stolen from the men's department of an Italian fashion house. She looks up from the safe as she swings the door open, and the sunlight streaming in from the floor-to-ceilng windows finds copper in her sleek dark hair, paints hard-edged shadows on her face. Without a word, she scoops up the contents of the safe -- a black duffel filled with something lumpy and apparently heavy.

Ariadne's waiting for the attack, bracing herself for the flash of pain and breathlessness and the disorienting jerk of waking up, but the woman's mouth turns up a little at the corner and she offers the hand not occupied by swinging the bag over her shoulder.

"I'm Arthur."

For a moment, Ariadne stares. Of course. It's all there -- in the confident stride, the sharp eyes, the exactness of expression. How could she have missed it? What makes him different?

Something else catches her eye before she can ask any of the questions crowding her mind, and as she takes Arthur's hand, she blurts, "Your safes are filled with _explosives_?"

 

_**VI. Yusuf** _

The chemical compounds used to facilitate shared dreaming are complex, and a good chemist can produce cocktails tailored to the subject's unique physical characteristics. A great chemist can mix compounds tailored to temperament. Yusuf did not become great without learning a thing or two about dreams and dreamers, and he hasn't forgotten, even if it's been a few years since he did any fieldwork.

He hasn't seen anything like Arthur before, though. Arthur doesn't wear dresses like second nature, doesn't arrive in the dream with a minute relaxation into his new body, doesn't smile more or talk easier.

After Arthur jerks awake almost before he gets the kick, Yusuf speaks to every member of the team in a futile attempt to work out what he's missing. Cobb has his theories but he's just as mystified as Yusuf; Ariadne is more interested in why Arthur's dream-safe invariably contains a bomb; and Eames doesn't seem to realize that Arthur doesn't actually believe he's a woman. The only one of them that has any insight is Saito, but it's delivered in typically cryptic fashion: a knowing smile and the words, "She knows what he wants," which rings true to Yusuf's mind, but it's nothing he can use to formulate a better compound.

The next time they all go under, Saito's words echo in Yusuf's mind, and he watches Arthur's every move, the way he'd watch for precipitate formation in his lab, until he finally -- _finally_ \-- works out what it is that Arthur wants.

Arthur doesn't change, and that's the biggest clue. He's still fast, dangerous, terse, brilliant, loyal to a fault. But the woman is beautiful, her shape framing his razor-sharp character in long, lithe curves, even her shoulder-length hair falls softly around her face, accentuating the slightest curl of her thin lips.

Arthur doesn't change, but in Yusuf's eyes, the dream becomes a catalyst and Arthur a chemical reaction, and he watches how quickly it is possible for all of them to come to love her.

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/3434.html?thread=3509354#t3509354) on the inception kink meme


End file.
